Are Split Tablet Keyboards Better? A Study of Soft Keyboard Layout and Hand Posture

acceptedVersio

Conceptions of ‘research’ and their gendered impact on research activity: A UK case study

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research and Development in 2020, available online: DOI to be added when available.The last twenty years have seen an increased emphasis around the world on the quality and quantity of research in response to national research assessments, international league tables, and changes in government funding. The prevailing attitude in higher education embeds research as the ‘gold standard’ in the context of academic activity. However, a key feature of this trend is significant gender differences in research activity. We argue that research productivity is related to identification as a researcher, and that identifying as ‘research-active’ or not would appear to depend upon how an individual academic subjectively defines ‘research’. This article brings together two hitherto separate bodies of work 1) the impact of gender on academic research careers, and 2) academic conceptions of research. Through a combination of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires, we investigate the extent to which interpretations of ‘research’ and ‘research activity’ differ by gender within an institution in the UK and the potential impact of these interpretations. Although the research found that there are many similarities in the interpretations of ‘research activity’ between genders, we found one important difference between male and female participants’ conceptions of research and its relationship to teaching. Significantly, our findings suggest that there is a need to expand our existing conceptualisations of ‘research’ to include ‘research as scholarship’ in order to address the obstacles that current understanding of ‘research’ have placed on some academics. Self-definition as a researcher underlies research activity. A narrow conception of ‘research’ may prevent individuals from identifying as ‘research-active’ and therefore engaging with research

Evidence for an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene in chromosome region 22pter–22q11.2

Ependymomas are glial tumours of the brain and spinal cord. The most frequent genetic change in sporadic ependymoma is monosomy 22, suggesting the presence of an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene on that chromosome. Clustering of ependymomas has been reported to occur in some families. From an earlier study in a family in which four cousins developed an ependymoma, we concluded that an ependymoma-susceptibility gene, which is not the NF2 gene in 22q12, might be located on chromosome 22. To localize that gene, we performed a segregation analysis with chromosome 22 markers in this family. This analysis revealed that the susceptibility gene may be located proximal to marker D22S941 in 22pter–22q11.2. Comparative genomic hybridization showed that monosomy 22 was the sole detectable genetic aberration in the tumour of one of the patients. Loss of heterozygosity studies in that tumour revealed that, in accordance to Knudson’s two-hit theory of tumorigenesis, the lost chromosome 22 originated from the parent presumed to have contributed the wild-type allele of the susceptibility gene. Thus, our segregation and tumour studies collectively indicate that an ependymoma tumour suppressor gene may be present in region 22pter–22q11.2. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

A Dutch validation study of the Multiple Sclerosis Work difficulties questionnaire in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Health and self-regulatio

Exploring biographical fictions: the role of imagination in writing and reading narrative

The creation of a literary biography requires an awareness both of how we construct what we believe we ‘know’ about a writer, and how the stories we adopt change our reading of their works. Research into the sources used to construct Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s biographies supports the conclusion that when writers can no longer create their own stories, those created about them are necessarily fictions, even if delivered under the supposedly more ‘factual’ genre of biography. Historical biographers construct narrative by imaginative interpretation of evidence. Writers’ biographies are commonly written not by historians but by literary critics, who draw extra biographical ‘evidence’ from interpreting the author’s works. But interpreting the works is a highly subjective exercise, and the story we find there may depend upon the story we are looking for. In the process of researching and writing a novel in verse based on Marlovian Theory - the idea that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death, fled to Northern Italy and wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare - the utilisation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to create a new narrative exposes the inherently deceptive nature of poetry. By switching between literal and figurative readings, and emphasising previously overlooked phrases, it is possible to interpret the Sonnets in such a way that they support Marlovian Theory more easily than they support the orthodox narrative

Modelling and computational improvements to the simulation of single vector-boson plus jet processes for the ATLAS experiment

This paper presents updated Monte Carlo configurations used to model the production of single electroweak vector bosons (W, Z/γ∗) in association with jets in proton-proton collisions for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Improvements pertaining to the electroweak input scheme, parton-shower splitting kernels and scale-setting scheme are shown for multi-jet merged configurations accurate to next-to-leading order in the strong and electroweak couplings. The computational resources required for these set-ups are assessed, and approximations are introduced resulting in a factor three reduction of the per-event CPU time without affecting the physics modelling performance. Continuous statistical enhancement techniques are introduced by ATLAS in order to populate low cross-section regions of phase space and are shown to match or exceed the generated effective luminosity. This, together with the lower per-event CPU time, results in a 50% reduction in the required computing resources compared to a legacy set-up previously used by the ATLAS collaboration. The set-ups described in this paper will be used for future ATLAS analyses and lay the foundation for the next generation of Monte Carlo predictions for single vector-boson plus jets production. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Search for neutral long-lived particles in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter

A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015–2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of c times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 TeV. [Figure not available: see fulltext.